Facebook said its revenue rose 49 percent to $11.966 billion in Q1 2018 fuelled by 50 percent growth in advertising revenue to $11.795 billion.
The revenue growth of the social media network indicates that the ongoing controversies did not affect the US-based company. Facebook’s revenue from mobile advertising represented 91 percent of advertising revenue against 85 percent of advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2017.
Facebook’s spending was $2.81 billion.
“Despite facing important challenges, our community and business are off to a strong start in 2018,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “We need to keep building new tools to help people connect, strengthen our communities, and bring the world closer together.”
Daily active users of Facebook rose 13 percent to 1.45 billion. Monthly active users grew 13 percent to 2.20 billion.
Facebook increased its headcount by 48 percent to 27,742 as of March 31, 2018.
Facebook said mobile advertising revenue represented 91 percent of advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2018, up from approximately 85 percent of advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2017.
The company reversed last quarter’s decline in the number of daily active users in the United States and Canada, saying it had 185 million users there, up from 184 million in the fourth quarter.
The results are a bright spot for the world’s largest social network amid months of negative headlines about the company’s handling of personal information, its role in elections and its fueling of violence in developing countries, Reuters reported.
Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Wehner told analysts on a call that expenses this year would grow between 50 percent and 60 percent, up from a prior range of 45 percent to 60 percent.
Much of Facebook’s ramp-up in spending is for safety and security, Wehner said. The category includes efforts to root out fake accounts, scrub hate speech and take down violent videos.
Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google together dominate the internet ad business worldwide. Facebook is expected to take 18 percent of digital ad revenue this year, compared with Google’s 31 percent, according to research firm eMarketer.
